Publisher, Naxos Audiobooks (May 2007)

Listen to an MP3 audio clip.

'Leviathan… Upon earth there is not his like, who is made without fear. Will he speak soft words unto thee?' Job 41

Whale Nation is a hymn to the beauty, intelligence and majesty of the largest mammal on earth. A ‘green classic’ read with natural resonance by its author, it rarely fails to strike a chord in the hearts of those concerned with the abuse of our planet.

On the second CD is a fascinating account of whale history. Sensitively underscored with classical music.

About the Author: Heathcote Williams, poet, playwright and actor, has made a significant contribution to many fields. He is best known for his extended poems on environmental subjects. His plays have also won acclaim, notably AC/DC and Hancock’s Last Half Hour. Roles in Orlando, Wish You Were Here, and Prospero in Derek Jarman’s The Tempest.

Poet, writer, activist and actor Heathcote Williams reads his epic poem Whale Nation himself – and who else could read it quite like him.

His passion for our planet’s environment and the plight of the whale resonates through this superb recording, a factor which helped Whale Nation win a Talkie Award for Best Poetry Recording.

Review by Kim Bunce, The Observer - This poem is a unique homage to the most mysterious mammal, the whale. Heathcote Williams sets out wondrous facts: a whale plays for three times as long as it spends searching for food; they mate face to face, their long flippers wrapped around each other; they are social, sensual, jokey and non-manipulative. They have no natural enemy in the sea, and are reluctant to believe man will attack them. To the backdrop of Mozart’s Requiem, Williams describes in horrific detail how whale oil is extracted for use in antibiotics, shampoo, piano keys, tennis rackets and weapons of mass destruction. This work is a warning against the gradual extermination of a magnificent creature.

Review by Sue Arnold, The Guardian - The blue whale has as many living cells in its body as there are people in the world; its tongue is 10ft thick and weighs as much as an elephant; it has seven stomachs, eight tonnes of blood, and arteries that you could swim through. It consumes a million calories a day and lives for 120 years ... whale statistics are breathtaking. So is this extraordinary audio by Heathcote Williams, poet, playwright, actor and conservationist. Since it was commissioned for Ken Campbell’s Underwater Theatre in Liverpool in 1988, it has been published and performed all over the world – except in Russia, Norway and Japan, which, despite international condemnation, continue to hunt whales.

William's passionate hymn to their beauty, intelligence and humour (the largest brain ever created, with a 15 million-year-old smile) will return you to the whale fold. Disc two has the scientific facts and history, but it’s the poetry on disc one, against an evocative background of whale song and Mendelssohn’s Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage Overture, that will knock you flat. Here’s a taste. ‘Whales play in an amniotic paradise, their light minds shaped by buoyancy, unrestricted by gravity, somersaulting like angels or birds. Whales play for three times as long as they spend searching for food – delicate, involved games with floating seabirds’ feathers thrown high into the air and logs of wood flipped from the tops of their heads, carried in their teeth for a game of tag, ranging across the entire Pacific.’ This is a must-have audio.